Diary Of A Busker Day 499 Wednesday January 22nd 2014 Winchester (1. Opposite Pavillion, Time: 2:16-3:06pm, 2. Opposite Vodafone, Time: 3:14-4:45pm).
There’s a guy even older than me – and too old to have a pony-tail – playing at The Butter Cross. I walk through the alleyway, past The Slug & Lettuce – all pretty dead there…down the road, turn left at Market Street, down to Monsoon, look up the High Street and see Mandolin John up at the end of The Pentice. He’s wearing a dark suit and tie, he’s got his flask and his guitar, so…back up to where I just was…and that dark-haired woman who works in Pavillion is there, and again she makes a point of closing the door tight when someone leaves it open, and giving me a short (but well understood) glance. Bitch.
Enough of her. The temperature’s cold but there’s no wind and the sun’s out…and I’m able to play the Fifth Gnossienne with a minimumumum of mistakes, probably because I went through it a few times before I came out. In fact, I did a Satie set: the Gymnopedie and Gnossiennes 1 and 5. Cool!
I gave it 50 minutes – there was hardly anyone about, and I got about £7, which is OK, considering all that. I also got some big compliments (cloth ears – my saviour!), although not in the hard-cash form, from two girls sitting, drinking and smoking outside The Slug. I just had to moan to them about the Pavillion bitch. I almost forgot, I had a donation from a little boy whose dad was also smoking outside The Slug. They both came up and the boy threw the money – mainly shrapnel – in the bucket with such force, most of it bounced back out and down a drain grill a few inches away. Cheers. I suppose it’s a stupid place to put a bucket, though.
I almost forgot (again), I played Angie – on of the ones I’m teaching young Ollie – and a bloke riding by on a bike clapped! After that, I waked down the High Street via The Butter Cross and now John’s there, in his suit, but now with his tie done up like a bow-tie! As I’m going down the road, one of the Greenpeace people asks what I play, and when I say instrumental guitar, he says ‘Great, I’ll walk down with you – I’ve had enough of that guy’, meaning John. I ask why and he says ‘He’s doing all the religious stuff. He’ll start a song, then suddenly start shouting about God’. What? – John?! Maybe he’s having a breakdown, I mean, what’s with the suit and weird bow-tie business, anyway?
So, without a proper break, I set up at Vodafone, which is a bit colder and windier than the first place. Song Of The Day is Dr. Zhivago, as it secures a CD sale, from two Chinese girls who’ve seen me loads of times. In fact, they first saw me in 2012 and almost bought a CD then. Of course, back then I only had the 7 song CD, so they wouldn’t have had a choice. They – very wisely, I thought – opted for the 20 song one.
During Dixie McGuire – which I’m doing every day, now – a girl about five and her sister of about two, dance next to me while the mother stands at the Monsoon entrance, looking pretty much exhausted. I reckon she must be grateful for the distraction. After Dixie, I do The Third Man…and they’re still at it. Then, at one point, I look away for a few seconds and when I look aback, the five year old’s skirt has fallen down to her ankles (I don’t get that much these days) so the mother has to pull it back up. Then she gives them some shrapnel to give to me: fair enough, she does apologise – ‘I haven’t got any money’, and the two year old stands with it over the bucket for a minute while her sister tries to get her to drop it in, which she does…eventually. Then she picks up the bucket so her mother has to wrench it off her and put it back. But she does it again and starts walking off with it, and it takes her mother a few seconds to notice because she’s now on the phone, so she runs after her and brings her back. This routine – or rigmarole – is repeated a further five times, until they go off. FIVE times!
Then they return! – with some ‘proper’ money: the five year old’s got a pound coin and the two year old’s got a 50p piece. Then it starts all over again: the dancing, the hovering over the bucket, the picking it up, the mother getting stressed out! In the end, she picks up the monster toddler and slings her over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes – very funny!
When they go, I see Mick leaning against the Vodafone wall, laughing. He comes over and asks me if I’ve learnt anything new, and I can’t think of anything, apart from the resurrected Satie Gnossienne, which I play until I make a mistake…on the fourth bar! Then he berates me for pronouncing the name wrong – ‘No, not GA-nossienne. Nossienne – there’s a silent G. We’re not GERMAN! It’s French – Nossienne! And ‘ee was a weird bloke – threw a girlfriend out the window. They’re all MAD – French composers! Influenced Debussy alot’, says Mick.
Then he notices I’ve shaved off the moustache – ‘Where’s the?’, and he points to his top lip. I say I got bored with it, and people at home got bored with it. It was a change, anyway. Speaking of the moustache, after Mick left, Mandolin John turned up. He leaned into me and said ‘Think you look better without the ‘tashe’. ‘Do you?’ ‘Yeah, everything, I think comes out. That’s the problem!’ and he walks off. What does that mean? – weird people. It’s good I’m such a sweet-natured soul, or it could have been a problem for HIM.
Just as I’m tuning down for the last song – The Rain Song, the guy who was at The Butter Cross when I came in, stands nearby so, thinking he wants to play, I say he can set up, as I’m going, after this song. He says he’s finished – he’s done four hours without a break: 10:30-2:30. He shows me his fingers – ‘I’ve got blisters – that’s all I do – from the metal, the strings’. That’s stupid. I mean, apart from the blisters, you’ll piss all the shop people off, doing four hours. So it must have been him, banging away, with his strumming and singing/shouting, and then John, strumming and singing/shouting his religiousness. Jesus H!
On the way home, up near Jewry Street, a young (they’re all young) Greenpeace guy asked what I’d been playing – ‘Any new stuff?’, so I said ‘Well, Blowin’ In The Wind’. He laughed and said ‘That’s not new, that’s fifty years old!’ I said it was a new one for me. Then he said ‘Actually, I think I heard you do that one…yeah, with great panache and style’. Great panache – really, I ask you!
Earnings: £23.61p (Including 1 CD)